Do you meditate in the morning? If so, what time do you meditate? I've thought about going on a retreat, but I heard the wake up time is 5:30 am! I'm the type of person that sleeps in if he can. I'm a bit of a night owl. I do meditate in the morning before I go to work, but that's usually around 8 am. Do you think I should train myself to get up early and meditate or just stick with what I'm doing now. Also, how am I going to deal with waking up at 5:30 am on a retreat? I feel like I'll be exhausted from waking up so early and won't be able to meditate...I'll probably be sleeping more than meditating.

I'd also love to hear an answer to this. I'm considering trying to train myself to always get up at 6am and practice for an hour right away. Anybody else done this? My natural tendency is to sleep until lunchtime! So any tips would be great!

Good luck Digity if you try it Maybe we should start a night-owl rehabilitation club :p

Remember that most retreats will have you going to bed around ten or so - it only takes a day or two to really get used to that schedule if you work towards it in the week or so beforehand. In general, one needs less sleep during a retreat. After all, you're not doing much but sitting!

I don't think there's a great need to alter your sleep schedule in your daily life, but I would recommend easing into an earlier wakeup time if you know a retreat is in your future. That way it isn't quite as much of a shock on your body.

Gain and loss, status and disgrace, censure and praise, pleasure and pain:these conditions among human beings are inconstant,impermanent, subject to change.

I have trained myself to wake up between 4am and 4:45am (it varies by season and workload) so I can meditate for at least 45 minutes in the morning. Yes, it is difficult but I have learned a lot about about effort, persistence and determination not to mention about the nivaranas (hindrances) especially sloth and torpor. In the end, though, only you can tell what is too much or not enough. Still, it helps to remember how ideal our present conditions are and just how unlikely it is that we ay ever enjoy similar circumstances again any time soon. May everyone enjoy success in their practice!

To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas.-Dhp. 183

I used to live at a temple where we'd meditate as a group at 5 am, and then we'd bow three times to end the session. Sometimes I'd start nodding during the sit. As my head whizzed toward the floor, my semi-conscious mind would awaken and assume I was bowing, so naturally I would commence my three bows. Only to realize, of course, that no one else was bowing and the bell had not yet rang. So while the rest of the group continued to meditate, there I was half-awake bowing in the middle of the hall. Then I would just keep meditating as if nothing happened...

when i was in a retreat the sleeping and also the eating part where very easy for me and now i try to not eat after noon and wake up early and its very hard

i dont think you should worry because of it - yes its good to try to fit the hours to a retreat before but really there is no need to worry like it was said after a day you will get used to it- and even if you dont it would be a great opportunity to deal with sleepiness

Please send merit to my dog named Mika who has passed away - thanks in advance

Feathers wrote:I'd also love to hear an answer to this. I'm considering trying to train myself to always get up at 6am and practice for an hour right away. Anybody else done this?

Yes - it went really well BUT it only works when there is no-one else in the house for a few weeks and I could set my own routines without cutting across other people's plans. When the family is home, which is most of the time, I grab times later in the day but it's not as good.

Digity wrote:Do you meditate in the morning? If so, what time do you meditate?

I usually wake up around 5:00am! In my natural state I usually sleep much later, but I have found that my body and mind work much better when I get into the habit of waking up early. I've only recently began to get back on the wagon meditation-wise, but I do try to do at least a quick ten minutes before I get up and cycle to work. I think it's been very beneficial for me to start going to bed and rising at earlier times, and meditating.

"O Sariputra! Form does not differ from the void, and the void does not differ from the form. Form is the void, and the void is form."

I've heard it said that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours after. If you go to bed at 10 pm - which also seems to be the recommended time designated in the suttas for lying down and taking rest - then rising at 5 am or even 4 am becomes easy, so long as you go to bed without lots of (or preferably, any) food in your stomach (which in my experience disturbs sleep and also means that one's digestive organs (including the liver) don't get to rest).

Regarding having to have an empty stomach, my recommendation for a rumbling tummy at bedtime is some hot milk with spices and honey if you wish, which alleviates the hunger pangs, helps one to get sleepy, but is soon digested and won't disturb one's sleep. But it has to be hot, not cold. I've been drinking organically produced, unhomogenized milk in this manner and it's been great for this purpose.

If you are finding the early hours hard to adjust to as regards wakefulness, remember also that as a temporary measure, some coffee or tea first thing in the morning doesn't break the five precepts. They do have their uses sometimes.

Then the Blessed One, picking up a tiny bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monk, "There isn't even this much form...feeling...perception...fabrications...consciousness that is constant, lasting, eternal, not subject to change, that will stay just as it is as long as eternity." (SN 22.97)

Feathers wrote:I'd also love to hear an answer to this. I'm considering trying to train myself to always get up at 6am and practice for an hour right away. Anybody else done this?

Yes. It went horribly.

Ha. Yes, same here. I cannot tell you how periods in my life I have resolved to get up at 5:45 AM and get an hour of meditation in before work. Lack of sleep and proper rest and inability to pay attention at work were definitely big factors that made me drop that habit... quickly... mutliple times. The best time for me to meditate is in the middle of the day. It's just a shame we don't have meditation hour at work...

LonesomeYogurt wrote:Remember that most retreats will have you going to bed around ten or so - it only takes a day or two to really get used to that schedule if you work towards it in the week or so beforehand. In general, one needs less sleep during a retreat. After all, you're not doing much but sitting!

I don't think there's a great need to alter your sleep schedule in your daily life, but I would recommend easing into an earlier wakeup time if you know a retreat is in your future. That way it isn't quite as much of a shock on your body.

+1

If you want to do it, you can. During retreats, you can also take rests and power naps to rejuvenate. Also please keep in mind that everyone's experiences are different and so is each retreat, in fact. But the effort is worth it IMHO